them?” I froze, unsure how to respond. Although I couldn’t sense any glimpse of madness in her lashless eyes, but some sort of weird gentleness in that crooked smile, I stammered an excuse. She skipped any rumination of my refusal and jumped straight into telling me stories. Many tales with birds. I didn’t put the camera in my bag straight away. I continued shooting as I listened. The viewfinder started stabilising and I could distinguish the wings fluttering, their bodies fragmenting the stillness. Some were cooing, and as I looked not to step in the puddle made by the previous night’s rain, I saw her reflection. Still smiling, gesturing, telling me the birds’ stories. I asked her name as I told her mine. “My name?” Her eyes sparked like matches in the dark. “I am Myra.” Witnessed silently by the birds, her name echoed on the wind, carrying the faint scent of resin and my sudden increased restlessness. I looked back as I left, and realised that only the tree by the truck was leafless. The rest were wearing their usual garments, healthy, blending in the park’s horizon. Only that tree stood out, branches bare. Synchronised with the wind, the pigeons floated back onto the branches, but something different moved between their bodies. Two gigantic opaque wings battered in the cadence of nature’s sunset hums, and they engulfed the tree in their shadow. Myra’s door was still shut, but that black, gigantic bird-like apparition perched itself on the roof of the truck and, after a few moments, disappeared. My mind tried to deny what my eyes perceived, my body screaming in chaos, every muscle alert, holding my breath as my heart urged me to run. There was no one on the streets, except this singular teenager with long hair, whose eyes met mine. Like deer in the headlights, we both were stuck in time, unable to move or say anything, until he broke and ran away, dropping something. Back home, I tried to remove the smell of birds which leaked into my pores. As I washed my face with cold water, my gaze stopped through wet lashes. Thin, 90s headphones laid on the edge of the sink. Putting them over my ears, I pressed play on the unbranded Walkman. It was just as mine used to be: white, with the cassette rolling behind a transparent glass, saying: Made in Germany. A tune was in mid-play. I thought of my father humming this very song years ago on the sofa and a sharp ache pierced my chest. He used to love that band, and as I tried to remember its name, the song stopped and a young man’s voice started. “I’ll be one day enough to get our home back. What happened was unfair, even I can see it, and I am not even 17 yet. I wish I never was, not even 16, not 15, no nothing. But she would be completely alone. And everyone would laugh at her.” Then the song started like nothing happened. The next day, I had to find this kid and return his Walkman, hoping to restore my dignity and maybe understand that what I had seen, although unusual, did have an explanation. “Giant black birds disappearing on rooftops don’t exist!” My imagination sometimes fascinated me with the foolish arrogance of someone trying to hold his head upright, drifting in and out of sleep. When I opened the pictures I took of the tree and Myra’s truck, I was baffled at how every photo was pink with green. I felt a sudden, thrilling fear, was it the camera, or had I captured something impossible? The next day, I still took it with me. Sometimes I felt useless without the camera. It was like a shield of protection and memory. Since my dad’s passing, I used it more. Holding it, I felt as if I had the power to preserve every fleeting piece of the world from him to this very park. Now, my camera was in the bag strapped around my body, broken. Myra saw me from the distance; this time she waved. No beanie hat, just a big thick crown of hair like entangled wire mesh. “I’m changing!” she shouted and disappeared inside her truck. As I waited, an old woman with bright white hair, pruned and primmed, crossed by the truck, dragged by a small dog. It started yapping at me, to his owner’s discontent. She mumbled in an irritated tone, almost scolding for disturbing her mutt with my presence, when I heard: “She’s not right in her head!” a passer-by said, slowing down his pace. “Who? This lady with the dog?” “No! The lady with the birds! She lost her son or something. Somebody hit him with this very truck! She bought it from him!” He said as he went on his way, unfazed by the mutt barking at him. The sun started setting, and the birds perched on the tree, flocking like liquid mercury beads. “Where’s your camera?” Myra appeared, her head covered with the beanie hat, wearing the same clothes. “My camera is broken, not really broken, but it’s giving me some errors. Look!” I said as I put the camera at arm’s length. “Ah! These pictures are beautiful! The colours!” “The colours are wrong, Myra!” “No, no, everything around here is pink and green! Wait! I’ll show you!” She disappeared inside her truck with the excitement of a light flickering to life, closing the door behind her. Rattling, banging sounds came from inside, her murmur and glee growing louder, until everything stopped. I waited staring at the sunset casting a range of yellows and reds, until they diminished, blues and dark greys taking over. She never came out of the truck and I was scared of the night unravelling, the shadows forming behind the trees. Of that black, gigantic bird. I went closer to the truck and peeked through the only window, my words shaking. “Myra … !” Between cages with birds, piles of feathers and hoarded junk, I could see Myra, head resting in her bony fingers, her body like a tensed questioned mark, holding a picture. After calling her name once more, I decided to leave. Crossing the empty park somehow, I knew that I would never see her again. I looked back one last time toward the tree, the birds and the graffiti-smudged truck. The gigantic bird came like a veil of darkness, chasing me through the park, covering the sky with its shadow. I started running, legs burning, breathless, looking back from time to time. Until, suddenly, it vanished. With it, the truck disappeared too, as if it had never been. Only the tree with leaves and birds flying to and fro still lingered. As the darkness cleared the sky, the park became green and the sky pink. A smile crossed my face. She had been right all along. I put the headphones on my ears and pressed play. Now, I remembered the band’s name and hummed the song just like my dad used to. “those unseen, linger more, we are real.” 31
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